Homemademech - Gamecube Pikmin 2 reviews

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Pikmin 2

Stop staring at me like that!
Just because it’s a review of Pikmin 2 doesn’t mean this is not something you should consider playing!
In fact, just so you know, this game is something best played by people who play military style war strategy games! Yes! The tactics and skills used to play a strategy war sim will go far here.
Anyway it’s games that begin with dire health warnings week, and apparently this game has one of those! After all, who doesn’t want to play a game that features a dire health warning… think this one has to do with seizures from watching flashing lights, ala what happened in that seldom seen Poke’mon episode featuring Porygon.

What happened in the original Pikmin? In the previous Pikmin game you were Captain Olimar, and you were lost on the planet of the Pikmin. Thankfully these little mutated carrot people things were quite friendly, and with the help of this species you managed to get off their homeworld and return home.
Too bad only bad news waited for you when you got back!
It seems that, well, while you were gone the company you worked for went into bankruptcy and now you’ll have to go BACK to the Planet of the Pikmin to get your company out of debt!
So back you go! Using your Pikmin to salvage the strangest treasures and battle stranger monsters on the planet Pikmin… aka the Dead Earth!

Guess what!! You’re wandering willy nilly on a dead Earth!! Nature has overtaken the world and humanity is nowhere to be found! That and your species is micro sized… so in that context the Earth is sort of like the Planet of the Giants from your POV! Good thing the Earth is dead of human life since there’s no way you’ll ever defeat a human! As for the treasure you need to save your company? All you seem capable of finding is the remains of a dead world, scattered (and buried) on lifeless streets, parks and areas overgrown with plant life and debris! So the treasure you’re finding? Some of it is valuable (crystals) but most of the stuff is just junk (except for your species who holds this stuff as treasures). Oh, and some of this stuff is actual corporate logo stuff meaning some Japanese branches of real companies went out of their way to pay Nintendo to be “advertised” in this game (which means you’ll find things like a Duracell battery, bottle tops from Coke, Dr. Pepper & Yoo-hoo, and more)!
At least this time you’re bringing a co-worker (who is responsible for the money crisis to begin with) in one Louie, who seems to quickly take to Pikmin raising.

Ok. How does the strategy thing work? It’s all in the useage of your Pikmin!
You start out with Red Pikmin (good against fire) but as you go along you can pick up other species!
You have the electric Yellow Pikmin, water capable Blue Pikmin, and THREE new species (so far)!
The speedy poisonous White Pikmin (good for poison environs), the large bulky (powerful) Purple (sumo) Pikmin, and a strange hybrid that is part bug enemy/part Pikmin (which embodies the water capable traits of the Blue Pikmin with the durability of the Purple Pikmin -- too bad you can‘t keep them though)!

The strategy comes from first making Pikmin (which is easiest for the Red, Blue and Yellow as you’ll find out as you play), then the deployment and useage of said Pikmin. The hardest being deployment into the many “tunnels” beneath the ground where you dig up treasure, and fight monsters. These are the hardest since you have to complete the level in order to carry your treasure out. If you bail before you reach the end you’ll lose all your treasure and have to go back and re-do the level over again (except for certain levels where multiple escapes are available for a premature “bail out”). However since the game auto-save after each completed level of the tunnels you can always “bail” by just hitting reset and redoing a level if your losses were too great and you need a second chance.

As for creature deployment into situations? Some creatures are best suited for certain Pikmin, same as some environments. Some environs you run into are only suited to one Pikmin, while it is deadly to the others. For instance only the Blue Pikmin and the strange Bug Pikmin hybrid can swim, so they are best used for water environs. Meanwhile only the Red Pikmin can withstand fire, while the Yellow Pikmin is best suited for electrical environs, finally the White Pikmin are best for poison gas environs and for tackling large creatures since they’re poisonous when eaten… so in a pinch you can always put together a small “suicide” squad of Whites and feed them to big beasts one at a time to kill them.
Finding out what Pikmin is best for what enemy/environ, and how best to utilize your troops is the key to success. And since you have a partner (Louie) you can split up your forces and take the right Pikmin to handle the right job. In this sense I usually do it like this : I leave one near the drop point (where the little pod is hovering for pick-up of treasures) with most of my Pikmin (where they will be safe) while I deploy with a small Pikmin unit to survey and battle with so it keeps casualties to a minimum.

My only complaint is the game is abit easy. It’s addictive and fun, but I have 80% of the treasure needed already and I only played the game a few days now. Still, it’s an addiction and once you get hooked you’ll be playing for hours trying to work that debt off… oh, wait, I’m done now and I had a few days left to my rental. Go figure. So I moved on and now I’m reviewing Prince of Persia : Sands of Time… cool. That’s next week, by the way.

Oh, did I mention there’s some sort of health warning with this game? Yeah. I mentioned that.
It was mentioned in the instruction booklet… too bad this is a rental so there’s no instruction booklet to consult. I figure it’s probably a seizure warning (ala that one Poke’mon episode with the flashing lights that caused seizures) but I played the game through from beginning to… well, first end… and nothing happened to me so I guess I’m not one of those people who are prone to seizures from watching flashing lights.

Oh, well, breakdown time.

Pikmin Breakdown the 2nd
What’s Hot? - It’s a madly addictive game. The search for treasures and the exploration of the dead Earth is just something you can’t put down… until you get a better game, but for a GameCube exclusive (since I never heard any other system having this game) it’s a good one. The graphics are great, the gameplay is solid and addictive, and it’s just something you need to see for yourself!

What’s Not? - I do, however, have some issues with this game.
One, despite the fact that this game has two characters you can switch from (Olimar and Louie) and the ability to play 2-Player Battles, there’s no 2-Player co-op mode where you and another player can cooperate in your exploration and treasure retrieval! Yes, the game takes place day by day, but the days do not last long enough for serious exploration and most of the time halfway through a long exploration of an outside environ (time stops when you explore tunnels) I had to call said exploration off since the sun was going down. If I had another player to split the Pikmin (max 100 on the field at one time) then that would have allowed for better useage of time to explore more things in the little time each day had.

Another downer is the fact that, despite the fact this game seems like a natural for online play (multiple players and their Pikmin wandering a larger dead Earth running into each other as they explored, forming alliances or rivalries to pick the many environs clean of “treasure”), this game lacks said online playability.
That is a shame since this would have been a fun online game, same as Animal Crossing which also would have benefited from an online option (and the ability to visit the many villages of other players).

The last downer is the inability to keep the beast/Pikmin hybrids you run into… well, I only saw them once in one tunnel system and that’s it. Wish I could have kept them and used them in other areas.

Moments to Remember? - The endless, addictive search for the many “treasures” of the dead Earth! You’ll never know what weird common place everyday item you’ll dig up next, or what weird name (or even weirder journal entry) will be made of each item! And add to that the fact that some of these items (a dozen or so) have the ability to upgrade your character? That just makes the endless hunt for treasure that much more interesting, and memorable!

What to Ignore? - If you’re like me you’ll take awhile to get used to the quirks of your Pikmin. And, like me, you’ll end up getting whole squads of Pikmin killed off because you made some mistake here, or there, or did something you shouldn’t have and bammo, lots of dead Pikmin.
Eh. The learning curve sometimes is a little steep and I’d like to ignore some of my early mistakes while learning to work my Pikmin. In fact I don’t want to talk about it… so I won’t.
Good thing there’s the reset switch whenever I commit Pikmin genocide.

Overall? - It’s one of the few games out there that Nintendo can be proud of, believe it or not!
It’s a meek little strategy game that has abit of an addictive quality to it, and sure to get you going once you got the hang of Pikmin management and treasure seeking.
A little addiction that is suitable for all ages, Pikmin 2 has that strange unique quality to it that makes it a good game to play, and something you’ll enjoy when you feel like a timeout from the intense games of your collection. Try it, you might like it.

Gamecube - Pikmin 2

Gamecube Pikmin 2 Reviews

Pikmin 2

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